Tag: bernie or bust
Inside Dr. Jill Stein’s Philadelphia Headquarters

Inside Dr. Jill Stein’s Philadelphia Headquarters

Dr. Jill Stein’s campaign headquarters in south Philadelphia looked exactly as you would expect – megaphones lined one wall. There was an improvised recycling station. Everyone looked like a hipster stereotype, but older.

Around ten members of the campaign were trying to figure out Stein’s schedule for Wednesday – is it a live stream or a TV interview that they’re doing? They weren’t sure. But they were excited about the options.

The Green Party’s candidate for president had been receiving an unusual amount of media attention thanks to protests at the Democratic National Convention from the “Bernie or Bust” movement.

Her campaign agreed to an interview with me — before the “big” media outlets began calling. Now, she didn’t have much time. Stein was going on Fox News soon.

She spent the day before speaking to former Sanders supporters who are now refusing to support Hillary Clinton, even after Sanders has repeatedly endorsed her. Stein assured them that there’s a third choice in November and that with her, their revolution can continue.

When she joined protesters outside the DNC on Tuesday night, the rowdy crowd surrounded her so closely that she began to feel sick. Stein’s campaign has been fairly small until now, and she doesn’t have the security infrastructure that major presidential candidates usually enjoy.

Gloria Mattera, the campaign’s co-chair, was the one in charge at the scene. While she agreed that the influx of Sanders supporters to the Stein campaign has been significant, she wanted to make sure I knew there were people who supported Stein all along, “even while Sanders was in the race.”

I told her that many “Bernie or Bust” protesters had said that, ideally, they would want Sanders to run with the Green Party, and that I saw reports of Stein being open to this scenario. Mattera conceded that their campaign has made several attempts at reaching out to Sanders, not just now but throughout the years, but “he’s never responded.”

When I asked her the question of the week — “What about those who think a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump?” — she said, “A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Jill Stein. Nobody owes anybody votes, in terms of any political party.”

I asked why Stein seemed to be taking closer aim at Clinton than at Donald Trump, who Sanders and many progressives consider to be an “imminent threat.” Mattera answered that she believes most people see Trump, and “see what they see,” but Clinton is “an insidious evil.”

And what about Meleiza Figueroa, the campaign’s press director, a prototypical Sanders supporter that Stein is hoping will typify other converts to her camp? The young Californian has been a Sanders supporter for a long time. She registered with the Green Party when she was 18-years-old, but became a registered Democrat this year so she could vote for the Vermont senator.

“I knew that Bernie was going to get crushed,” she said about her decision to move on to Stein’s movement. “I saw this as the next battlefield.”

Stein’s campaign staff seemed only slightly unrealistic at first — Mattera believes that Stein could just use executive orders to cut defense spending in half and move to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030 — but then I spoke to one of Stein’s “advisors.”

Adrian Boutureira’s card said he was a “field director/foreign policy advisor,” but he clarified that he was actually foreign policy advisor for Latin America and Palestine, or at least “one of them.” Wearing combat boots and a fedora, the Uruguay native looked more like a Brooklyn artist to me.

I asked what his policy qualifications were. He said he had been working on “Latin American solidarity issues for 25 years,” serving as co-founder of the “No War On Cuba” movement and doing other community work.

He moved to his foreign policy advice for Stein — a mix of convictions about America’s covert anti-progressive actions abroad, including against Venezuela and Cuba, two of the most, apparently, “progressive governments” the U.S. has tried to destroy. Then he called President Obama “the fascist with a heart of gold — there is no such thing.”

Finally, the woman of the hour arrived at her campaign headquarters. An ABC local reporter was finishing setting up her equipment for an interview. Sporting the highest credentials in the room, she was first on the list to interview Stein. A group of filmmakers trying to document the “revolution,” and I sat back and watched the scene.

I met Stein for a brief moment — she has the charisma of a politician, up close. But the scale of her previous campaigns was evident in Philadelphia.

I was taken aback when Stein arrived because she was carrying her own bags and wearing a tank top. I had seen her the previous two days at rallies wearing a similar outfit, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the huge differences between her and the other woman in the race. There’s no way Hillary Clinton has ever finished getting ready for a TV appearance in front of a camera crew — at least, not in decades.

It gave me pause — this was the operation to carry Bernie’s torch? I thought of my best friend, who came to this country when he was 7-years-old and has never known another life. As a “DREAMer,” his future would be in jeopardy if Donald Trump becomes president. So are reproductive rights, equality for minorities and women, gun control, college affordability… these are Sanders’ issues, and Clinton’s issues, and Democratic issues. Philadelphia served it’s purpose, for me: The choice is clear.

 

Photo: Fabian Ortiz

Black Lives Matter and ‘Bernie or Bust’ Clash Outside The DNC

Black Lives Matter and ‘Bernie or Bust’ Clash Outside The DNC

The chaos outside the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia on Tuesday night could be felt from miles away. Trains going to the Wells Fargo Center were not running all the way there to the venue, and police were present in every cart of every train heading that direction.

On the 25-minute walk from the train station to the convention, a swarm of incredulous Sanders delegates could be seen walking back the other way from the Wells Fargo Center, after the Vermont senator decided to end the roll call vote and nominate Hillary Clinton for the presidency.

“Have you ever been surrounded by Hillary people all day long? It sucks,” one of them said to a protestor.

The first thing I saw at the convention’s outer gate was a Sanders supporter who now supports Clinton arguing with a Sanders supporter who now supports Trump. “Don’t call me a fucking fascist!” the man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat said to the Clinton supporter.

Riled up “Bernie or Bust” supporters waited for the Sanders delegates who decided to walk out of the convention as a show of protest. Once the delegates came out, the protester’s next move was unclear, even to their leaders — those who seemed to have some sway with the crowd chanted “slow down, tighten it up.” No one knew where we were headed, but a stampede of police officers followed, awaiting their own orders. Protesters first followed the delegates, and then turned around and came back to the gate.

One of them, Jill Orchin, from North Carolina, was visibly upset at what she claimed were efforts by the Democratic Party to silence Sanders’ delegates during speeches. She called Sanders part in the roll call vote for Clinton “hurtful.”

“I look up to Bernie, I thank him and he’s a beautiful human being, but it sucks that he had to do what he had to do because of his job and I don’t agree with it” Orchin said.

An older woman with a Sanders shirt was handing out roses in an attempt to “keep the peace.” But it wasn’t long before peace was threatened outside the DNC.

When a Black Lives Matter march arrived, tensions rose as they refused to unite the two protests. “This message is not gonna get drowned out. I will not allow it” one BLM protestor said, as he argued that the Bernie or Bust crowd only wanted to protest together to make their own movement look larger than it was, not to address racial injustice.

A group of Sanders supporters attempted to ease tensions with “we are in this together” chants that clashed with “hell no DNC we won’t vote for Hillary” screams.

“This is why we can’t do anything” a Sanders supporter said of BLM’s attempts to keep the two protests separate.

A BLM activist replied that he had joined the Bernie or Bust movement before, but that their “this is what democracy looks like” motto did not represent his demands as a black man. “I’ve been shot in the street. You wanna talk about that?” he asked the Berner.

Green party candidate, Dr. Jill Stein showed up shortly after, but, even after a megaphone was handed to her by protesters, her words were nearly inaudible to anyone more than 10 feet away from her. Most of the people there did not even know who the woman swarmed by a crowd of cameras was.

The protest rapidly deescalated once the BLM and Bernie or Bust crowds separated for good. Those angry at the DNC were loud, but even at the protest’s peak, the chaos spoke louder than their message itself.

The relative inconsequence of the protests became even clearer as I left the area in an Uber: I was greeted by the driver’s shushing — “I gotta listen to Bill Clinton’s speech!”

 

Photo: Fabian Ortiz

‘Bernie Or Bust’ Movement Makes Noise In Philadelphia

‘Bernie Or Bust’ Movement Makes Noise In Philadelphia

While Democrats were making history Tuesday by becoming the first major party in American history to nominate a woman for the presidency at their convention in Philadelphia, the “Bernie or Bust” movement made sure to make some noise outside.

A few miles away from the convention, a few hundred Bernie Sanders supporters, as well as some unaffiliated anarchists, got together at City Hall to pledge that they would not stand with the Democratic Party in November and vote for Hillary Clinton, regardless of what their movement’s own leader keeps telling them.

The opening act was a rapper telling the crowd that “both parties can suck a dick.” Victor Tiffany, a co-founder of the Bernie or Bust movement, said Clinton was just “John McCain in a pantsuit.”

The main speaker was Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who has seen an opening with Sanders supporters since the senator endorsed Clinton. “This is what democracy looks like,” she told the mostly white, mostly younger crowd desperately looking for another option, before she outlined why Sanders’ revolution still has a chance with her candidacy.

Parts of the crowd looked straight out of a Donald Trump rally – images of Clinton as a prisoner and as the devil were common, as were signs denouncing a “rigged” system and claiming votes were stolen by the DNC.

Amongst these protesters, most seemed to feel that the DNC e-mails published by Wikileaks last week were proof of why they should not support Clinton or her party.

Damien Green, a 29-years-old Sanders supporter, said he was hoping the Vermont senator would choose to run with the Green Party at the last last minute. He came to Philadelphia from Baltimore to show his support for Sanders and his disdain for the two-party system. Like many Sanders supporters who came to Philadelphia for the convention, Zain and his girlfriend have been camping at the FDR Park. “We occupied” it, he joked.

Zain isn’t sure what he’ll do when November comes, but today? “Never Trump, never Hillary.”

“Everyone knows what Clinton has done. We can’t close our eyes and turn around and go back so we have to keep moving forward and make sure the political change happens,” Green said. “Whether that’s voting for Green or holding out and writing in Bernie in November, one or the other. It depends on the next couple of months.”

I asked him the same question he’s heard dozens of times, “What about those who say a vote for a third party candidate is a vote for Trump?”

“They should have picked Sanders to begin with. They shouldn’t have cheated it and corrupted and rigged the system,” he said sort of dismissively. “What we fear from Trump we’ve already seen in Hillary. There’s no greater evil, they’re both on the same level.”

Even though Sanders has endorsed Clinton, and presented his most vocal case for her yet at the convention on Monday, the “Bernie or Busters” seem to think Sanders is sending them subliminal messages.

The idea that Sanders does not really want his supporters to vote for Clinton, even though he keeps encouraging them to do so, was a recurrent theme at this rally.

“His hands are tied,” Green said about Sanders. “He’s endorsed Hillary and he can’t say anything bad about her because he would still like to be part of the political race. He’s leaving up to us. He knows we will not follow Hillary.”

It’s an interesting dynamic: Protestors were furious at their two choices, but not at Bernie for falling in line with the Democratic Party and endorsing Clinton.

Another Sanders supporter at the rally, Joe Zain, also thinks Sanders is just doing “the politically smart thing.” By endorsing Clinton, Zain argues, Sanders is “off the Clinton kill list.”

So Zain has chosen to vote for Trump. His “Berners For Trump” sign caused one supporter to angrily yell that Zain, and people like him, were only “one percent of the people” there. It seemed to me that the passing protest was right – there were more signs advocating pot than Trump.

Another protester just flipped Zain off. He quickly shrugged it off and kept answering reporters’ questions, clearly enjoying his time in the limelight.

“I think in the blue states we need to be behind Jill Stein but in the swing states, like Pennsylvania, where the manufacturing has been destroyed by disastrous trade deals, we need to stand with Americanism and with Donald Trump who’s against these trade deals.”

Many others at the rally didn’t really have a game plan for the November elections, they just know they want “revolution.” A Philadelphia local named Yair, who wore a Che Guevara shirt, said he was “sort of” a Sanders supporter.

I asked him how his shirt related to his support for Sanders. (This wanna-be Communist faction of the Sanders movement has always troubled me: Growing up in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez’ “Socialism,” I chose to believe Sanders when he said his was revolution was aimed at Canada’s model, full of free healthcare and accessible education, than Latin America’s, empty of many basic resources and opportunity.)

Yair told me he was wearing the Guevara shirt because “it represents revolution.”

It seemed to me that that is what much of this protest was about — the idea of “a revolution,” a word that meant radically different things to different people at City Hall.

 

Photo: Fabian Ortiz

Will A Little Bit More Of The Sanders Campaign Hurt Democrats?

Will A Little Bit More Of The Sanders Campaign Hurt Democrats?

After Bernie Sanders announced on Wednesday that he would not yet suspend his campaign, many Democrats responded with concern, calling on him to step down so that the party could unite under Hillary Clinton.

“It will be almost impossible for Sen. Sanders to catch up. And he should do the math and draw his own conclusions,” Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski told Politico.

“Sanders should stop the intrigue and electoral gimmicks,” Froma Harrop wrote in her column yesterday.

But will Sanders’ continued campaign hurt the party — or its prospective nominee?

It’s likely that Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and a clean, cohesive electoral narrative would have benefited from a Sanders withdrawal on Tuesday after losses in California and New Jersey, which ended his mathematical shot at the nomination. But extending his campaign another week until the Washington, D.C. primary, or even another month until the convention in Philadelphia, may not hurt Democrats’ eventual party unity as badly as some suggest.

While getting some Sanders supporters to support Clinton will be a challenge — no matter what he does, now and a month from now — Sanders is not building the “Bernie or Bust” movement by following through on a promise to finish the campaign. It is worth looking at the final stages of the last Democratic presidential primary to understand what is happening now.

In 2008, the PUMA (“Party Unity My Ass”) movement drew similar attention, battling the party leadership and steadfastly backing Hillary Clinton despite her loss to Barack Obama.

Headlines warned of an enormous rift in the Democratic Party, including the prediction, based on exit polls, that “half of Clinton’s supporters won’t back Obama.”

Following the 2008 convention, however, those numbers changed. Nearly 20 percent more voters who initially backed Clinton said they were certain they would vote for Obama following the Denver gathering — where both Bill and Hillary Clinton delivered speeches strongly supporting him, and she halted the roll call vote to ask for his nomination by acclamation.

What a little more airtime for Sanders is more likely to do is bring attention to his agenda — and to neglected issues like the fight over D.C.’s budget autonomy — in a primary that he will probably lose badly to Clinton.

 

Photo: Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (R) delivers a statement while his wife Jane (L) listens after departing the West Wing of the White House following the meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama (not pictured) in Washington, U.S. June 9, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron